


Returned

by Cherry



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canonverse Eruri Week, Eruri Week 2016, Gen, M/M, canonverse, eruri - Freeform, mostly angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 04:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6037699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherry/pseuds/Cherry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Survey Corps returns from failing to capture the female titan, Levi wanders the streets alone until he's recognized...</p><p>Mainly angst with some hurt/comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Returned

**Author's Note:**

> A shortish story for canonverse Eruri week - almost canon relationship between them, too, I hope. This is for the hurt/comfort prompt. The idea of Levi going out alone and allowing what happens came from a kink meme prompt a long time ago that I can't find now. If it was yours, please let me know so I can acknowledge it properly.

There is the paperwork of course – the official tidying away - neatly written names in identical boxes: Gunter Shultz, Eld Jinn, Petra Ral, Oluo Bossard. He handpicked them himself for this slaughter. Perhaps he should have saved time – ordered them onto the parade ground and decapitated them cleanly one after the other. Would that have been more merciful?

It’s only the monsters who keep coming back: Mike, the giant, with his weird ability to sniff out trouble; Hange, sometimes seeming more than half crazed; the titan boy; the girl, Mikasa, who is much too strong for her age and build. Something familiar there…

Erwin Smith. The Survey Corps’ commander, rolling his dice, those cold blue eyes focussed on a future Levi has chanced everything on believing Erwin can actually see.

And Levi, who has no idea what kind of a monster he is, only that he _is_ one. A more than human strength awakened in him long ago, lending him the power that makes him Erwin’s weapon, but, in the end, it has never helped him to save anyone he really loved.

In the bath house the water is almost cold; everyone will be trying to wash away more than blood and grime tonight. Leaning over a sink, Levi shifts his weight to his uninjured leg, and remembers people in the underground with limbs distorted by the lack of sunlight: Jan, Farlan’s mother… Then he thinks of Isabel - Petra.

Thoughtful Eld will never get married now. Steady Gunther’s parents won’t see their only son again. Loyal Oluo’s many siblings will talk reverently about their brother, the hero, fallen in battle. Brave Petra’s father…

Levi remembers looking back through the trees, startled by the titan’s tears. Ridiculous self-indulgence for a monster to weep. Monsters should kill without scope for remorse or frustration. They should have no regrets.

This fight has put him out of action; he’s suddenly a sword without a blade. With every other death he has only resolved to fight harder – but the critical time is thundering towards them like the female titan itself, and he is useless. Since Wall Maria fell he has always been at Erwin’s side. He remembers Isabel’s bird - its broken wing.

Well, that mended, and so will his leg. He can already walk on it – perhaps quite a long way. He limps, but the pain is bearable. Pain has to be, when there’s no choice but to bear it.

He didn’t plan to leave the barracks, but he finds himself walking the quiet streets of Karanese after dark. At first the few people who pass him hurry by with no sign of recognition; out of uniform he is remarkable for little other than his small stature. He walks aimlessly, concentrating on the pain in his leg - the tearing sensation across his thigh and the sharp tug at each step where tendons meet bone below his kneecap. He knows exactly how it would feel to attempt to use the gear like this – an unpleasant echo of the agony that shot through him with the jolt of his foot on hard crystal instead of yielding flesh, too late to lessen the speed of impact. Focussed on sensation, he can keep the other memories at bay.

“You’re Levi.” The man’s voice is more curious than hostile, but there’s an edge of that, too. He’s no one Levi recognises.

“Yes.”

“They call you _Humanity’s Strongest Soldier_.” He calls across to another man, leaning against a wall on the other side of the street. “Hey, Rudi – it’s Captain Levi. Of the Survey Corps.”

Rudi crosses the road. “Yeah? Evening, Captain. We were just talking about your lot.”

Levi says nothing. Rudi’s friend scoffs. “Only seen you on a horse, before. Never thought you’d be so short. Or did you lose a few inches out there today?”

“Lost a lot of soldiers, that’s all I know,” Rudi says, harsh voiced. “My neighbour’s son, Carl. Did you know Carl, Captain Levi? Carl Amsel?”

“No.”

So many soldiers died in the rear guard. Perhaps a hundred. Eren, and Petra, Oluo, Eld, Gunter, screaming at him to let them help, to give the order –

“No.” Rudi’s voice takes on a jeering tone. “No, I guess an ordinary soldier like Carl wouldn’t be important enough for the great Captain Levi to bother with.”

“It’s not –” Levi begins. But there’s no point in defending himself. Carl was a soldier. “He chose to join the corps,” Levi finishes.

Three more people cross the street, drawn by raised voices.

“Levi, of the Survey Corps,” Rudi says.

“Thought he’d be bigger,” a newcomer sneers, “given all the taxes we spend on them. They eat like Sina nobles, don’t they?”

“Must burn it all off chasing around after titans,” someone else says. “Hard work, getting kids killed.”

“So, was it worth it, this time?” Rudi asks, pushing forward. “I heard more than a hundred soldiers died. Was it worth it?”

Levi looks at him. “I can’t discuss the mission.”

The growing crowd parts for a middle-aged couple - a thin-faced woman and a tall, bearded man. “Our son was killed today,” the man says. “I’m Heinrich Amsel, Carl’s father. They say you knew Carl?”

Levi shakes his head once. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t know him. But everyone who died today fought bravely.”

“But what did they die _for_?” Mrs. Amsel asks. Her red-rimmed eyes fill with tears again.

“I can’t talk about the mission,” Levi repeats. He feels pity, but pity achieves nothing. He can say that he’s sorry for her loss, but not that he’s sorry her son joined the corps, that they took him outside the walls and asked him to die on a failed mission. He was a soldier. He took the same risks as the others. The ordinary soldiers, anyway. Only the monsters come back.

“He was seventeen!”

 _Some were younger_ , Levi thinks. There’s nothing he can say.

“I don’t understand what it was for!” Carl’s mother wails. “Tell me what it was for!”

Levi can only look at her. Rudi steps forward, seizes the lapels of Levi’s jacket, gives him a little shake. “For God’s sake – give her an answer!”

Levi does nothing to resist. He can’t give answers he doesn’t have.

“Say something, damn it!”

Mr. Amsel’s hand closes tight around Levi’s forearm. “But _you_ came back!” he accuses, his eyes bright with pain and anger. “ _You_ always come back, don’t you?”

Levi meets his gaze. _It’s true_ , he thinks. _I always come back._

“Why didn’t you protect him?” Mr. Amsel demands. “ _Humanity’s Strongest_?”

Levi can’t tell him the truth – that his son was almost certainly one of the men assigned to the rear guard, with orders to fight to the death to keep the titan from catching Eren, protected at the centre of Levi’s squad. Carl Amsel was expendable – more expendable than Eren Yeager, anyway. It’s one of many harsh truths outside the walls – some Survey Corps’ lives are worth more than others. They all accept it. Levi accepts it. His own life is worth more than most – less than Eren’s, perhaps less than Hange’s, less than Erwin’s, although Erwin might dispute that… More than most others. Was, anyway. Will be again, if his leg heals.

“Carl didn’t deserve to die!” Mr. Amsel cries, his fingers gripping Levi’s arm hard enough to bruise.

 _Deserving has nothing to do with it._ Levi’s life is worth more because he’s a better fighter – that’s a simple fact. As for what he _deserves_ -

 _Yes. This_ , Levi thinks, as Rudi’s fist strikes his jaw, knocking his head back. Mr. Amsel joins in, his wife watching, silent and grim-faced, making no move to stop him. Levi takes the punches because there’s nothing else he can give – no answers, no excuses, no apologies he can make that would be sincere. Others join in, raining blows. It’s oddly quiet – grunts of exertion – muttered curses – names.

“This is for Peter – my brother.” A punch to the stomach that has Levi doubled over.

“My son, Gunter.” A blow to the cheekbone that knocks him to the ground. _Must be a different Gunter,_ Levi thinks dizzily. Don’t Gunter Shultz’s parents live inside Rose, north of Trost?

No one asks him why he’s not fighting back. Perhaps they know guilt when they see it. A vicious kick to the back of his right knee has him on the ground, pain from the torn muscle caused by his hard landing on the female titan’s armoured hand lancing up through his thigh into the base of his spine. Now that he’s down, punches turn to kicks. Someone leans in to yank at his hair spitefully. Funny how much that hurts. But it’s also a strange kind of luxury, lying there, unresisting. At least this pain is something he doesn’t have to shut away. Each new blow is a specific, localized hurt, and he can deal with that. His body is strong, as monsters’ bodies have to be. He can deal with all of this, because it’s what these people need, and what he deserves. What he wants.

It’s only when a sharp kick to the base of his skull has his vision going dark that it occurs to Levi that he ought to put a stop to this before he’s so badly injured that he’ll be no use to the Corps even after his leg heals. He forces himself to his hands and knees, blood dripping from his nose, fighting the urge to vomit. The members of the small crowd become still, wary, perhaps shocked at what they’ve done. Levi looks up and recognizes Petra’s father, pushing through the mob. After him comes a pale woman of a similar age. The two of them stand side by side, looking down at him.

“My daughter wouldn’t come when they told us you were here,” the woman says. “She was supposed to marry Eld Jinn. She says he wouldn’t have wanted this – but _I_ want it. Look at you! You’re pathetic! Why are _you_ alive, when a good man like Eld –” Her voice breaks on a sob.

 _It has nothing to do with good or evil, either,_ Levi knows. If the good were rewarded and the bad punished, Eld would have lived to marry and father a dozen cheerful, intelligent children, and Levi would be many years dead.

The woman who ought to have been Eld’s mother-in-law spits on the ground in front of Levi and turns away.

“You _chose_ her, for this!” Petra’s father cries. “That’s what I don’t understand! She would have given you everything, and you let her die! Why didn’t you protect her?”

_She was a soldier. She knew the world outside the walls. She knew that protecting her wasn’t my job._

It’s the truth, and it doesn’t stop Levi from feeling responsible. But he can’t afford regrets. He hasn’t shed a tear since Farlan and Isabel died, but when he looks into Petra’s father’s eyes his own suddenly ache. It’s the look of utter bewilderment that hurts him. He’s seen it too many times before. How can you ask anyone to understand the change death brings? This morning she was alive – and now –

However it happens, the same obscene annihilation.

“Maybe you’re right,” Levi says. “I don’t know. Maybe I should have saved her.” He gets to his feet, blinking hard before tears can fall. Petra’s father gathers himself. Levi waits for the blow, but it doesn’t come.

“She wouldn’t have wanted… She was so proud to serve with you…” He turns to face the crowd. “That’s enough. Go home.”

There’s some muttering, but no real dissent. People start to leave, some cursing, most quiet.

“You have to live with yourself,” Petra’s father says. “I don’t envy you that.”

 

By the time Levi nears the barracks it’s started to rain, and memories of Isabel and Farlan float to the surface again. One of those punches to the head must have done more damage than he thought at first – he staggers a little, not from the injury to his leg. Stupid. Stupid to go out alone – stupid to take a beating just to make himself feel better – some kind of pathetic seeking for atonement, like Erwin’s professed belief in paying your dues in Hell.

The punches and kicks were some kind of relief, perhaps. The words…

Sticks and stones – But it’s the words that do the real damage.

Ah. Levi leans against a wall, finally overcome. That look on Petra’s father’s face. Farlan waving goodbye, as though his fate, then, there, had always been inevitable. Levi, pulling him out of the gash he’d made in the titan’s flesh – half of him, anyway, bitten clean in two - just like Eld. Isabel’s severed head, eyes open, and Isabel – gone. Petra’s lifeless gaze, her face raised to the sky. Gunter expertly dispatched with one strike to the nape of his neck, like a titan. Oluo who always wanted to be like –

Who in their right mind would want _that_? Levi covers his eyes with his hand, his jaw clenched. He will _not_. Ridiculous self-indulgence for a monster –

Control comes more slowly than it has for years, but it comes.

 _Stupid_.

He knows he’d been unforgivably irresponsible, and he can’t let the guard at the gate see him in this state. Morale is low enough as it is. In normal circumstances scaling the wall behind the stable block would be an easy feat – the stonework is rough enough to provide plenty of holds for someone of Levi’s climbing experience - but with his damaged leg and the injuries he’s sustained because of his own lapse of judgement, he knows it’s going to be a challenge.

The biggest problem turns out to be waves of nauseous dizziness that come at inconvenient moments – just as he’s transferring his weight from his good leg to the injured one; again, as he gets three fingers into a gap in the mortar only to find the weathered stone itself crumbling. But he makes it to the top of the wall, breathing hard, but no more battered than he was at the start. The descent is easier, but the final jump to the ground jolts him and suddenly everything hurts. Shit. If he’s damaged something important –

As long as he can get back to his room undetected he thinks he’ll be all right. If he’s luckier than he deserves to be, then water, soap and clean bandages will be enough. All that matters is that no one should find out about what he has allowed to happen to him. The thought of Erwin’s disappointment is more than he can bear.

He keeps to the shadows and slips into the building without attracting attention. Once he’s gained the safety of his room, he closes the door softly behind him and slumps against it for a moment, closing his eyes, breathing carefully because of the ache in his ribs, relieved despite the enduring pain.

“Levi.”

His eyes fly open at the sound of Erwin’s voice. There’s the grating sound of the chair by the writing desk being pushed back. “Just a moment,” Erwin says. “I have a lamp.”

“Don’t! I – I have a headache. Better in the dark. What are you doing here?”

Erwin can hear the lie in his voice and opens the lamp’s shutter anyway. The lamplight isn’t especially bright, but it’s bright enough.

“Levi – what the hell?”

“I’m –” He’s about to lie again, but one look at Erwin’s shocked face tells him the futility of that. “I fucked up,” he admits, instead. “You’re not supposed to be here. Why are you here?”

“How bad is it?” Erwin asks, coming too close, his hands on Levi’s shoulders, heavy on bruised skin.

Levi takes a breath in. The pain in his ribs catches it; makes him cough. “It’s not too bad. – It’s not good.”

“No, it’s not. Sit on the bed.”

For a moment Levi thinks about resisting, but now Erwin’s seen him like this he decides there’s no point. Someone’s going to have to check him over, Erwin will insist on that much, so better Erwin himself than another witness to his weakness.

“You need a doctor.”

“No.”

“If this puts you out of action –”

“It won’t. Nothing’s broken. There’s nothing that won’t heal faster than the leg.”

“And how bad is that?”

“Bad enough. Couple of weeks, maybe. Not days.”

“I see.”

Levi’s heart plummets. He wonders how Mike felt on the day someone in the crowd first yelled _Levi! Humanity’s Strongest!_ and Erwin smiled. He thinks of Eren, and remembers his foot making contact with the kid’s jaw – the skitter of a bloody tooth across the courtroom floor. Hange exclaiming, “It grew back!”

“It _will_ heal,” Levi insists.

“Yes.” Erwin puts a hand each side of Levi’s face and tilts it left, right. “Any dizziness?”

“Not now.”

“Can you stand?”

“Yes.”

“Take off your clothes.” Levi obeys as quickly as he can, stripping down to his underwear, placing his bloodied clothes on the bed, and turning to face Erwin. Erwin takes his time looking, taking a mental survey of damage, impersonal as if he were checking defective gear.

“Turn around.”

Levi does as he’s told. He wishes he could see Erwin’s expression, but there’s a sort of luxury in this kind of vulnerability, too – this rare, still moment of attention.

“Bruising, mainly. I’m concerned about the marks here.” Erwin’s hand is suddenly warm against Levi’s skin, low on the right side of his back – the gentle pressure barely painful. “Any pain at all in the next few days –”

“Blood in my piss, pain in the kidneys,” Levi says. “I know. I’ll watch out for the signs. Can I get changed now?”

“No. You need something on the worst of these.”

“I have witch hazel. I’ll –”

“I’ll do it. Where –”

“Box under the bed.”

Levi can hear Erwin moving the box, opening it. He doesn’t turn around.

Erwin goes to the washstand and hands Levi a damp cloth. “There’s blood all over your face. Is that just from your nose?”

“Oh – yeah.” Levi wipes himself as clean as he can, while Erwin finds another cloth. The sweetly astringent smell of witch hazel fills the room. When Erwin presses against the bruises on his back with the soaked cloth, Levi closes his eyes.

“No one could have done this to you unless you let it happen,” Erwin says. Levi’s heart contracts at the almost-concealed note of injured anger in his tone.

“I did.”

“Why?”

“I thought they were right.”

Erwin’s hands stop moving, the right pressing the cool cloth against the worst of Levi’s bruises, the left on his waist, holding him in place. “Who did this?”

Levi is glad Erwin can’t see his face. “Just people. Some of them relatives - friends of soldiers who died. Wanting answers.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Nothing. What could I tell them? I don’t have any answers.” Levi doesn’t mean it to sound accusing, but, behind him, Erwin tenses.

“So you let them do this because you thought it was fitting?”

“I… Yeah.”

“You think you deserved their anger?”

“As a representative of the Corps, yeah. As Captain of the Special Ops Squad – yeah.”

“You were following _my_ orders. To the letter. You led the female titan into our trap. No one else could have done it.”

Ridiculous self-indulgence, for a monster to accept comfort from another monster.

“We couldn’t have done it without the rearguard’s sacrifices,” Levi says, with befitting cruelty.

“I’m aware of that,” Erwin replies. “You made that clear.”

Levi turns. In the low lamplight, Erwin’s eyes are shadowed like bruises.

“What?” Levi demands, fists clenching. “You want me to apologize for this, when _you_ wanted - What the hell were you doing in my room, anyway, waiting on your own in the dark -? What _was_ it you wanted?”

Erwin’s lips part, but he says nothing.

Levi frowns. “Sometimes, you think I should have killed you.”

Erwin’s right hand twitches involuntarily, his fingers clenching on old scar tissue – the line of a blade across his palm.

Levi is merciless. “Well?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Levi exhales softly. “All right then.”

Erwin allows himself to watch Levi as he dresses. Levi permits his gaze. The lamplight emphasises the ridges and hollows of Levi’s hard muscles. His beauty is almost inhuman but for the silver lines of old scars, and the new, mottled bruising. Even injured like this, Erwin thinks, Levi moves with more graceful precision than anyone else. This evening’s bruises are already darkening, brought to the surface by the witch hazel and the warmth of the room, but Erwin trusts Levi’s estimate of how long his damaged leg will take to heal.

When Levi has changed into clean night clothes, he sits on the edge of the bed flexing his right ankle experimentally. “Nothing too serious,” he says at last.

“Good.”

Levi looks up. “You’re going to try again for that titan, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

Levi nods towards his injured leg. “Before this has healed.”

“Yes. We don’t have any time –”

“I know. Eren’s friend - the girl, Mikasa Ackerman. She’s good.”

Erwin smiles. “Thank you. But she’s not as good as you.”

“Huh. Not yet...”

When Levi’s eyes meet Erwin’s, enough has softened between them for Levi to shake his head with a small, half-smile. “I should get some sleep. You, too.”

“Yes. Well then – goodnight, Levi.”

Erwin’s hand is on the doorknob before Levi says, “This… It won’t happen again.”

Erwin inclines his head, but doesn’t look back. “I know.”


End file.
